Rasputin the Saint Who Sinned - Hardcover

Moynahan, Brian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 185410540X ISBN 13: 9781854105400

Publisher: London Bridge, 1998

Synopsis

In this evocative biography, Moynahan sheds new light on Rasputin''s life and disputes some of the widely held details of his murder. '

About this title

Review

British journalist and historian Brian Moynahan does not spare details of the lechery and drunkenness that Rasputin brought with him on his journey from the squalor of rural Siberia to St. Petersburg, where he captivated the tsar and tsarina with his mysterious ability to ease their hemophiliac son's hemorrhages. Yet Moynahan also credits "the mad monk" with intelligence, generosity, even a weird spirituality. In elegant prose, he retells with panache the saga of an illiterate peasant's rise to a position of fearsome power in the waning days of the Russian monarchy.

From the Inside Flap

ovich Rasputin came to St. Petersburg from his Siberian cabin in 1903 like a projectile from the medieval past, tattered, black-clad, muttering. By the time he was murdered thirteen years later, the peasant was the "beloved" Friend  of Tsar Nicholas and Empress Alexandra and the sponsor of the most powerful officials in Russia. He had become, a society lady wrote, "a dusk enveloping all our world, eclipsing the sun. How could so pitiful a wretch throw so vast a shadow? It was inexplicable, maddening, almost incredible. "
    
Rasputin's name has become synonymous with evil, but his legend has obscured the facts of his life. In this evocative biography, Brian Moynahan presents us with a flesh-and-blood Rasputin, more fascinating than the myth--a man in whom debauchery coexisted beside a real (if erratic) spiritual sense, a man whose coarseness hid a savvy awareness of human psychology. Drawing on confidential police reports, ca

About this edition

• Publisher: London Bridge
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 185410540X
• ISBN 13: 9781854105400
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416